She Likes The Dark
by MandyJane
Summary: "It's so different to her, you see. So utterly opposite to everything she appears. She is light, bright, blonde and sparkling, superficially beautiful and never ever complex or conflicted. Dark is deep and difficult and confusing, effortlessly seductive"


**DISCLAIMER - Harry Potter is not mine. However much I wish it was *sob***

**A/N - Greetings, dear readers :) i've always wanted to say that! But anyway, wihtout further ado, Here is yet another oneshot. This is a different take on the Teddy/Victoire/Dominique triangle that seems to be floating around fanfiction...not sure how JK feels about that :P Personally I think that Teddy and Victoire would have got together with very little fuss, but this as been bugging me for a couple of days, and now it can bug you! enjoy:**

She likes the dark.

It's so different to her, you see. So utterly opposite to everything she appears. She is light, bright, blonde and sparkling, superficially beautiful and never ever complex or conflicted. Dark is deep and difficult and confusing, effortlessly seductive and soft against her mind.

She sits here every night now, watching the waves crash on the pebbled beach. The sound is so much louder at night, sliding along the silken sky and brushing against her ears, like the bitter thoughts which slip into her mind like sand through her fingers. Traitorous whispers, ideas which make her feel bad, mean, spiteful – and yet a part of her revels in the self-pity and encourages the thoughts.

It's not common, her situation. How many girls an say that their fiancé left them for their older sister? And that their family wholeheartedly supports the pair, and is quite willing to forget that she was ever in love with him at all? She still can't quite believe it. But in a strange way, the dark makes it less awful, more acceptable. It allows her to sit and tell the hollow coves and empty beaches just how she feels without a shadow of judgement. The cool breeze whistles against her skin, twisting and winding around her slim shoulders as a scarf, and she speaks in a queer, tremulous voice.

"I suppose I should hate her, really. But I expected it too much for that. I'm angry, but mostly at myself for letting it go on for so long. The best word is bitter – that's how I feel. Like they've taken everything good and wonderful in the world and twisted into something wrong and ugly, without a thought for me. They've even sullied my memories with their sneaking around; made everything I once had infinitely less sweet. I don't even know what was real."

She falls silent, her thin voice snatched away by the wind as it flees her, leaving her hunched against the rocks.

"She was always prettier than me anyway. Always the favoured child, better at Quidditch, schoolwork, cooking. Everything. She was brilliant at everything that I failed at, and better at everything that I was good at. All I excelled at was being in love – and she's taken that too"

She glances back up at the little house, at the happy lights dancing in the small windows. Her blue eyes shine, starlight reflecting off unshed tears that now begin to dribble down her cheeks. Her face twists as if in pain and a sob catches in her throat, wavering tentatively like a candle flame in a draught. They're up in the house at the moment, still explaining their 'great love' to anyone who will listen, painting themselves as star-crossed lovers who overcame all the obstacles. The real story is far less romantic, far more ugly and cruel.

And yet no matter what they've done she will have to traverse their firelit gathering of warmth and happiness and laughter on her way to her cold, bland room and her plain, narrow bed. The sob turns into a bitter laugh, snarled by the wind into a mocking echo of her own past happiness. What a metaphor for the situation, she thinks, wrapping her thin grey cloak around her in an attempt to stave off the cold daggers that stab at her skin. Her life seems to be in shades of grey now, even as theirs grows more colourful and more flamboyant. Grey sea, grey sky, grey cloak, grey room, grey eyes. He took all the colours when he left.

He was perfect to her. But he is perfect _for _her sister, she realises with an awful pang of pain. But he still is perfect to her – that's the problem. So she stays there in the dark, steadfastly staring away from the lights. It's safer that way. Because when you get close to a sun like Teddy, you get burnt if you don't shine just as bright. And Victoire was always the shining one – Dominique was more likely to glow.

Perhaps the pain will fade with time, she comforts herself as the wind grows stronger, buffeting her freezing skin and threatening to make her stumble. But until then, I can always escape to the dark.

**Please review. It's the fanfiction author's version of payment ;)**


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